The Halloween Visitor
by knoodelhed
Summary: (oneshot) The kids encounter a friendly newcomer in Ocean Shores. But, is he more - or less - than he appears to be? And why is Raymundo staying indoors til nightfall on Halloween?


This past Halloween was definitely a strange one.  
  
Okay...from the beginning. Late morning of the thirty-first, my bud Twister and I were out free-diving at Flounder Flats, trying to find a couple of flounders for the fish fry we were planning for the first, and findings were few. We had our plastic basket floating in an inner tube, and peered at the sandy bottom as we slowly snorkeled. Twist just now surfaced, brandishing at the end of the pole-spear we'd brought a barely legal-sized fish he'd just finished chasing across the bottom. "Next one's your turn, Ottoman," he gasped, as he carefully unloaded the fish into the basket. I accepted the spear from him and adjusted my mask. I relaxed and breathed through my snorkel, and was about to dive down on a promising outline on the bottom when we had a...a visitor.  
  
We weren't the only ones out there, but him I remember. "Any luck, guys?" he called to us, talking through his snorkel as he finned in our direction. He was a fellow about our age who had neck-length sandy blond hair, and obviously knew how to handle himself in the water, though neither of us recognized him.  
  
Twist tilted our basket in the stranger's direction. "Just one so far," he answered.  
  
"M' name's Clarke," he introduced himself, extending a hand. We shook. "My name's Otto," I introduced myself, "and this is my friend Twister."  
  
Clarke smiled. "How long you guys been out here?" he asked.  
  
"Since about ten," I answered.  
  
"And it's getting on about noon," Clarke observed. "Look, if yer gunna take the role of a predator, ya gotta /act/ like a predator. Once over the bottom, play it low and slow...then /boom!/ Let 'em have it!" He gestured for the spear. "If I may. Observe the master."  
  
"Alrighty," I replied as I handed it to him. Clarke breathed three or four times then dove straight for the bottom. Twist and I, looking down through the water, watched him move slowly over the sand, choking his hand up on the spear and increasing the tension on its rubber band. Then suddenly he let it loose into a fish--a big one. Clarke, with a big smile around his snorkel mouthpiece, swam it up to the surface and flopped it into our basket.  
  
"/Now/ it's your turn," Clarke said as he returned the spear to me. I copied his technique, and finned down to a level just above the bottom. I looked around myself, and saw a promising outline in the sand, and without thinking, let my spear fly forward into it. It hit the flounder right behind the eyes, disabling it instantly. It was a big one too. I dragged it to the surface, surprised that I still had the wind to do so, and flopped it into our basket.  
  
"Whoa, thanks, dude!" I shouted as I spat out my snorkel, but Clarke was nowhere to be found. "Where'd that guy go?" I asked Twist.  
  
"I think he...joined the other guys he came with?" he answered. Nervously both of us dove down to the bottom for a look to make sure, but there was no trace of Clarke.  
  
"A guy like him? Drown? On a day like today?" I asked Twist. Clarke had that ...quality about him, that he knew what he was doing and was in excellent condition, and knew how to handle himself.  
  
"Never in a million years," answered Twister, who seemed to be in agreement. "Time for /me/ to get a fish..."  
  
¥Ê¥Ê¥  
  
We took our big basket of fish into the Shore Shack. Reggie was fine-tuning her custom Halloween decorations. "Whoa, guys! We needed /some/ fish, not /lots/ of fish!" she laughed. "Are there any left in the sea?"  
  
Tito was amazed. "Whoa, you little cuzzes brought up a lot of big fish today!" he laughed. "I'll clean them out, and put them in the freezer here."  
  
Up rode a blue-helmeted fellow on a Razor scooter who was wearing a Dodgers tee-shirt and blue 501s. It was our friend, Roderick. "Hey Twister! Hey Ottoman!" he greeted us. "Whoa, Tito, that's a lot of fish!" he continued. "Who caught 'em?"  
  
"Me and Otto did, Rod," answered Twister. "Spearfishing!"  
  
"That sounds cool! You gotta show me how to do that one of these days," bubbled Rod.  
  
"Hm. How long can you hold your breath?" I asked, getting a couple of h-u-g-e drinking glasses from behind the counter and filling them with ice water. Twister gave us a countdown, at which Rod and I raised the glasses to our faces, submerging our noses and mouths. Reg shot us a smirky "boys will be boys" glance as she started writing on her laptop computer.  
  
"2:05," noted Twister as Rod lowered his cup. "Pretty good!" I was still on a roll though, my little experience in Oahu had inspired me to try to expand the capacity of my breath. "3:38," Twist noted as I dropped my glass, patting Rod on the back.  
  
"How 'bout next weekend, Rod?" I answered.  
  
"Sounds good to me!" he smiled.  
  
"So, what's up?" I asked.  
  
"There's a guy over at Madtown giving tutorials. A kid a little older than me, in a white helmet, a red tanktop, and blue shorts..." I couldn't help but tune out Rod as I looked over in that direction. Sure enough, there was somebody over there matching that description, and he had attracted a bit of an audience around him. 'And it's not me,' I couldn't help thinking. I was shaken to earth when Rod continued, "...he said his name was Clarke something-or-other."  
  
Twist and I looked at each other. Our jaws dropped to the floor. Without a word we went downstairs to go clean up and change into our street clothes and got ready to go skateboarding. The enthusiastic crowd got a little quiet when Twist and I showed up, as though expecting some sort of a challenge.  
  
¥Ê¥Ê¥  
  
I'll admit, Clarke was a darn good skater and a pretty good teacher; it seemed there was no significant problem he couldn't solve, and no functional move he couldn't pull off. The kids who walked away from having skated with him were full of new confidence. Of the two of us, he helped Twister first, who talked quietly with him for a moment. Clarke then attacked one of the obstacles on the street course a certain way, asking, "Oh, like this?" and Twister answered, "Yeah!" Clarke then rolled back and explained, "Oh! All you need to do is apply more weight to the tail of the board." Twist then tried the trick that he wanted help on, and pulled it! He was so stoked.  
  
"Okay, Otto," Clarke approached me. "How can I help you today?"  
  
I thought long and hard for a moment. Was this guy the real deal? I had to come up with a genuine test. I got up and asked him to follow me to the bowl, and posed a problem to him that I needed help on. (And no, I won't tell you what it is.) Clarke thought long and hard for a moment, and then dropped in. "Aha!" he observed; "you should be able to pull this off if you lean into your turn and keep an eye on your leading foot; don't look too far downrange."  
  
I followed his advice, and was blown away by how dead on it was. The other groms looking on were pretty impressed too, they had probably seen me try this before and fail; they applauded as I stepped out of the bowl.  
  
I was awed and humbled.  
  
"Thank you, Clarke. Now it is I who must try to help you with something." I think this would have been the duty of a local reigning master, or something.  
  
"That's okay, Otto," he said, waving his hand, "Today is my day to help."  
  
"Aw, Clarke, at least let me invite you up for a short hockey practice, then dinner and trick-or-treating" I offered. "I'm making spaghetti, and we're doing a western theme this year, we might have enough stuff for an extra outfit," I continued. This guy had helped us out so much! I'd hardly noticed Reggie had showed up, a big honest smile on her face. She handed him one of our hockey team's business cards that she'd made.  
  
"Well...okay!" Clarke responded. "I'll be up around 3:30."  
  
¥Ê¥Ê¥  
  
Off and on, we'd been helping to train a new hockey team, Ocean Shores Blue. They're a bunch of good guys: Gene, whose other sports love is Michigan football; Scotty, a homeschoolie who just may be smarter than Sam; Bill, who wants to show us the wonders of Snow Summit; Ben, whose dad owns a boat; and Lewis, who might marry before he graduates highschool. Sam was still away with his mom doing something, probably off to see a show in L.A., so between me, Reggie, Twister, and Roderick, that left a slot open for Clarke to keep it a five-on-five if he showed.  
  
And show he did, at 3:29. We had a really good practice. Clarke would be welcome to play on our side any time. All too soon, the Blues had to leave, leaving the five of us to ponder the rest of the day. "We've had a pretty good day," Twister observed. "Thanks for helping us out, Clarke."  
  
"Much obliged. You guys got a good bunch of friends here."  
  
"Sorry I couldn't meet your acquaintance earlier, Clarke," Reggie said.  
  
"The pleasure's mine."  
  
Sandy came into the culdesac to bring Twister home, and Reggie accompanied Twister over, leaving me and Rod with Clarke as a light mist began to fall. "I think we'd better get inside, guys," Rod urged.  
  
Reggie came back. "I think we can get going around 6:30," she reported. The sun started its disappearance below the surface of the Pacific, making a wonderous display. "C'mon, let's eat!"  
  
Clarke did not move. "You've all been very kind to me, and I've had a total blast, but my time here is very short. I must be leaving soon."  
  
"Whaddya mean?" I asked, confused.  
  
"I don't think you understand, Otto. I must leave soon; I am not of this realm." This was getting spooky. Then as the green flash came off the sunset, he ...vanished.  
  
¥Ê¥Ê¥  
  
The three of us still living glomped each other in total shock and awe. We couldn't move for about ten minutes. Raymundo stepped out the front door of our home. "Everything okay?" he asked, as he led us into the living room.  
  
When I was able to talk, I told him about all the adventures we'd had that day. "This blond kid, did he tell you his name?" Ray asked me.  
  
"Yes he did. He said his name was Clarke." For a few minutes, Raymundo's omnipresent chef uniform held more color than did his face.  
  
"Have you guys noticed that I never step outside during daylight hours on Halloween, 31 October?" Raymundo asked.  
  
"I never paid it much mind," answered Reg, "but I think some explaining might be in order."  
  
Raymundo nodded and got up to open his wall safe, and took out a small notebook. There was an old photograph inside many of you might have seen before, of twelve kids in dark t-shirts (some with skateboards) standing or sitting on a blacktop in front of a humongous barn, a long wooden ramp behind them. "You've seen this before, right?" he asked. All three of us nodded.  
  
"The Cee Boys, the most influential group of extreme athletes who ever lived," Roderick identified.  
  
"True," Ray nodded with a sigh, "but I don't think any of you have ever seen the whole picture." He reached to the back of the picture, and unfolded an extra part to the left of "the picture we knew." In it stood a very young Raymundo, with lots of hair and a big grin on his face, leaning on the shoulder of a kid we recognized as Clarke! I quietly let out a word that seldom crosses my lips and that I'd never write down, once I realized that we'd spent much of that day in communion with the unknown.  
  
"Clarke was my best friend and 'lil bro' in that period of time," Raymundo continued. "He was an excellent skater and surfer, and had lived in Hawaii when he was younger. No, I didn't meet Tito through him, that's a different story. Clarke was a fun guy to hang around with, always up for a surf or to do some new skateboarding trick; in many ways, you, Otto, and you, Reggie remind me a lot of him ability-wise, and Otto, your friendship with Twister reminds me a lot of the bond I shared with Clarke. We were inseparable.  
  
"The Halloween just a few months after this picture was taken, me and Clarke went trick-or-treating. He was using his skateboard and wearing one of those dark costumes. Skaters particularly in those days didn't make wide use of helmets, except in 'special circumstances' like a downhill run or a session in a dry pool. Anyway, we'd gotten separated but agreed to meet at another location for a party later that night. Some minutes later, I saw an ambulance roaring through the neighborhood, and me ever curious, I trotted after it. I wish I hadn't; it tuned out some nimrod who'd had too much to drink had run Clarke down with his car, shoving the poor kid through a brick wall." Me and Reggie and Rod looked up at Ray with sad eyes.  
  
"It took me a while to get closure," Ray continued, "but the following Halloween during the daytime I was out fixing my Vespa or doing some chores or whatever, and Clarke came back to help me. This was both cool and freaky, and the visitations continued over the years. He was very nice, but having to deal with a ghost was very unnerving. One Halloween I was down with the flu, and I didn't see him then, so I theorized that if I stayed inside during Halloween day, the visitation wouldn't occur. So far, my theory's been holding."  
  
"That's very terrible," observed Reggie, "but very sweet too."  
  
An idea occurred to me. "Let's make Halloween a family activity day! That way, we can help you make peace with Clarke."  
  
"Yeah!" Roderick observed. "This whole thing, come to think of it, reminds me of an old legend my grama told me..."  
  
Raymundo laughed, as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Just then, Noelani came through the front foor, holding a bag of groceries. "Hi people! Did I miss anything?" she asked...  
  
"Mamacita, you have no idea!" I answered.  
  
¥ END ¥ 


End file.
